A winter comfort

Robert Sellers and James Hogg’s Little Ern!, the authorised biography of Ernie Wise, is an uplifting, heart-warming and beautifully written book that will act as a comfort blanket recalling cheery Christmases past: a time when Christmas didn’t really begin until the whole family gathered round the television set to enjoy the collective warmth of Morecambe and Wise. In 1977, 27 million people – half the population – watched the Christmas special.

The trouble is that most of us regard Eric as the comic genius and Ernie as just a gifted straight man. In 1999, the Queen unveiled a statue to Eric, for which £127,000 was provided by lottery money. In 2010 Doreen, Ernie’s beloved and devoted wife, unveiled a statue carved out of Yorkshire granite, the cost born by her. Ernie was dressed as a song and dance man by the pub where, as a six-year-old, he would clog dance on tables for pennies with his father.